Photographer just clicks with people

Photographer�Bill Wilson at the�Knights of St. Francis annual fundraiser on Thursday, Oct. 6, at Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco.

Photo: Beth Spotswood

Bill Wilson’s black bow tie was firmly affixed to his red plaid dress shirt. His ever-present camera bag was slung over his shoulder and his eyes lit up every time he saw someone he knew. “Excuse me, Mayor Brown?” Wilson pushed his way through Bimbo’s 365 Club and lifted the camera from around his neck, “Over here, Mayor Brown.”

Click, click, click.

Wilson was hired to photograph the Knights of St. Francis annual fundraiser on Thursday, Oct. 6. Founded by former Supervisor Angela Alioto in 2008, the Knights of St. Francis are a Catholic volunteer organization with enough political clout to fill a low-lit, red-velvet-walled Bimbo’s in support of Piazza St. Francis, a proposed public plaza on the 600 block of Vallejo Street.

The Piazza St. Francis, also known as the Poet’s Plaza, is a controversial plan many years in the making. Should Alioto get her way, that entire block in front of the National Shrine of St. Francis and Caffe Trieste would turn into an olive-tree-lined Umbrian-style piazza. Thursday’s priest-packed auction and dinner hoped to push that plan into a reality by 2017.

“The Poet’s Plaza has some minor political opposition,” Alioto announced to the crowd. “Actually,” she smirked, “it has some literally little, short opposition.”

Everyone laughed over their $125 plates of beef and polenta. They knew Alioto was referring to Supervisor Aaron Peskin, the notoriously diminutive politician whose camp is vehemently opposed to shutting down an entire block of North Beach for a piazza. Alioto doesn’t really care who’s against her passion project. “It will be,” she said of the plaza. “It just will be.”

Meanwhile, Wilson was hard at work. He and his camera made their way around the vintage nightclub. Onstage, an accordion player accompanied singers through both the American and Italian national anthems. Priest after priest offered introductions and prayers. An opera star flown in from Italy serenaded the crowd, and a bevy of servers refilled wine glasses just in time for a live auction. All the while, Bill Wilson, at 66 years old, kept moving.

Click, click, click.

Wilson is not nearly as low-key as other party photographers. He talks to everyone and laughs at every joke. His good intentions are as obvious as his camera’s flash.

The Valley Forge, Pa., native moved to San Francisco in 1997. Wilson lives by City College with Fernando, his partner of exactly 30 years. “I would tell you how we met, but it’s not for polite conversation,” Wilson confessed to me and all of Table 7. One minor encouragement later and he revealed all: “OK, OK,” he beamed. “We met at a urinal.”

I did not meet Bill Wilson at a urinal. I stumbled onto the photographer’s radar when I started writing blog posts for SFGate. Wilson would often take me under his wing at political events, making sure I got to meet a collection of people I’d never heard of before.

Wilson was (and still is) seemingly everywhere, at almost every ribbon cutting and political press conference, and he documents every Pride Parade like it might be the city’s last. He’s the kind of person who introduces two strangers by listing every single thing they’ve ever accomplished before in their life.

It’s a decade after our meeting, and Wilson is still helping me out. “This is her,” I heard him say as he dragged a Knight of St. Francis toward me. Chuck Yenson is very involved with the Knights’ work with San Francisco’s homeless. Yenson had discovered the group in the weekly bulletin at the Castro’s Most Holy Redeemer Church. “It really stuck, right from the get-go,” Yenson gushed of his connection with the Knights. “It’s been a wonderful thing.”

As the evening wore on, Alioto took her shoes off. She was surrounded by her San Francisco support system, by Italian opera and the Bimbo’s disco ball. Her grown sons dutifully made the rounds, shaking hands and remembering names. A handful of guests took home the stunning white orchid centerpieces.

Wilson was still there, doing his best to make everyone look nice. Occasionally he would simply stand out of the way beneath the projection screen as dramatic fonts thanked loyal donors with long last names. Wilson’s camera hung around his neck; his bow tie was a little bit crooked. In a room full of San Francisco’s bold names, Bill Wilson was right at home, awkwardly and apologetically himself.

I asked for permission to take his photograph. Wilson blushed and I raised my camera. Click, click, click.

Beth Spotswood is a San Francisco native who grew up in Marin County and returned to San Francisco after college in the East. She spent four years as a backstage dresser for “Steve Silver’s Beach Blanket Babylon” before signing on as a website producer for KPIX.

Spotswood’s work has been featured on KPIX, SFist, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7 Magazine, Porchlight Storytelling Series, LitQuake, Muni Diaries and the Bold Italic. She was the 2011 Reader’s Choice for 7x7 Magazine’s Hot 20 Under 40 and completed classes at Second City Training Center in Chicago. A Mission District resident for 15 years, Beth lives with her husband and a cat named Pompey.